Deron Williams

JB was on a long-weekend celebrating his birthday so I’m handling Monday’s daily notes this week. Wish him a happy birthday when you get a chance!

The walking triple-double machine that is Russell Westbrook fell a little short of his usual triple-double on Monday night, but no one will be complaining about 46 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists. He scored 18 points in the 2nd quarter to give the Thunder a halftime lead, before the Hawks stormed back and won the game.

Westbrook may want to talk to Andre Roberson (14 points, 5 rebounds), who shot just 1-7 after passes from Westbrook. Whether he continues to average a triple-double or not, it’s clear that Westbrook is a fantasy monster and has been well worth the first round price.

Man, without fantasy, blowout NBA games featuring sub-.500 teams might be more insufferable to watch than Vanderpump Rules. I would know, because I was watching both last night – L.A. hipsters being the absolute worst on the TV with the wife, then professional NBA players being the absolute worst on the iPad!

But of course some guys played well in the Denver @ Dallas travesty – a game I know Slim watched as well due to his Nuggets-bias – including Nikola Jokic going for a career-high 27/11/4/0/1. Hit 10-12 FG, 7-7 FT, and after Salah Mejri looked like Hassan Whiteside with 3 blocks in the first few minutes, Jokic really helped anchor down better post play.

Side note on those first two buckets for Jokic – look at Dwight Powell struggling to play D on centers. Just sayin’ based on our Pod this morning! Anywho, this is obviously the right step forward for Jock Itch to get unleashed, and he should have no problem working his way up to 30+ MPG every night now, right? RIGHT?!

F@#% You, Malone. So that tells me both A) you don’t reward players for playing well, B) but you do punish players for playing poorly, C) actually that makes total sense! It’s why we keep seeing the rotations wildly different night-to-night with no consistency for good performers. It’s exploitative coaching 101 – you don’t reward your underlings for doing something good, only punish them if they disobey. This also tells me it’s yet another Jusuf Nurkic slam, who went 4/6/2/1/0 on 2-6 shooting with 3 TO, and got thrown around a little by Mejri. I think Slim chose the wrong time to be REL-biased by the Nuggets, shoulda stuck with his Jazz! Here’s what else happened last night in fantasy basketball action:

When we finally saw the ultimate joker Jason Kidd put John Henson back into the starting line-up a couple of weeks ago, there was some excitement, except we all foresaw a pretty low-minute role. Go-go Gadget, minutes limits! With Greg Monroe playing pretty much like we expect Moose to play, and Miles Plumlee signed on a $50 million deal (more than Monta Ellis!), it didn’t seem like Henson would get enough of a role to be fantasy-reliable. Then after a few starts, the Bucks go back to DNP-ing Henson and pissing away their best center. They [shocker!] lost that DNP-Henson game against the Raps (but admittedly played em close), and Kidd must’ve finally gotten a divine intervention, and realized he should stick with Mr. Muppet. And the rest, as they say, is history! Go-go Gadget, winning streak! The Bucks have gone 4-0 on 4 straight Henson starts (given two against the Mess, but whatever), and Muppet Man has gone 14.8/7.8/1.5/0.5/3.0 over that stretch in 25.2 minutes, shooting 55% from the field. That line got accentuated by 20/7/2/1/2 on Saturday night against the Mess, thanks to solid post play and some sick-ass Giannis diming!

But the real stand out for me is the 3.8-4.5 FT over these last 4 starts, good for 83.3%. He’s at 72.7% on the year, after being a mid-50ish% FT shooter over his career. The stroke looks pretty clean, and I think this could be fairly legit. Go-go Gadget, FT coaching! At multi-blocks in 5 straight and settling into a 25 MPG start, Henson is a must-add everywhere. Go-go Gadget, waiver gold! Hopefully you heeded our “spec add in 12ers” advice a week ago, and you got a must-own big! All we need now, is The Joker to keep from Kidd-ing around with the line-up! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in Fantasy Basketball action:

Anyway…. Outside of that cheesiness, it was a fairly interesting Thursday evening, but many of the games were just irksome. It’s ironic that the Utah/Miami game deserved to be on TNT over the Cavs and Clippers. I don’t think anyone would’ve guessed an LA blowout win after that 70 point dud in Indy, but that’s pro sports for ya! At any rate, let’s get into it! At this point, I’m not sure if I’ll cover the whole Rockets – Warriors game, but I can already tell you that the winner scored over 120, and it was a race to see who could jack up more 3s. It’s entertaining, but it isn’t basketball, in my humble opinion.

Watch out league, The Dieng Train is about to run ya over like you’re Magic defenders! Our season chugs along through Thanksgiving (although with our jeans barely fitting), heading into December with 3 guys flirting with Oscar Robinson for tripdub averages, Brow looking redonk, and a multitude of other breakouts and disappointments, but I don’t want the Dieng Train to slip under the radar! Like a German train station, Gorgui Dieng remains regular, consistent, and otherwise just mundane, bringing true multicat performance after performance from a big (minus treys). After a slow-ish start, the Dieng Train put together a nice weekend with a rainbow 11/7/2/3/4 against the Suns, then 15/6/2/1/2 in a tough-matchup-for-a-big against the Warriors. And even though I said “minus treys”, he actually hit a triple in each of them! Shot 11-22 overall, committed only 2 combined TO, and after hitting only 6 treys last year, maybe this is a part of his game we’ll start to see expand. Before you Dieng Train detractors type “BORING!” in the comments, I know his per-36 is a smidge down from last year. That said, he’s played 36+ minutes in 4 of the past 5 games, and it’s all due to that beautiful, cuddly, Tibby Tibs treatment. Run your starters to death! But well, when one of your starters is a effin’ train, you ride that rail! Here’s what else went down over Thanksgiving weekend in fantasy basketball:

With how the Poppycockers put together their “Super Team”, I admittedly had some worries that the bunch of Tom Cruise-divas they threw out there might make The Poison Goose a mere co-pilot. But not with moxie like this!

Dude doing that at 7’3!!!!! SEVEN THREE!!! Monster game from Kristaps Porzingis last night, going a career-high 35/7/3/1/1 with 3 treys on 13-22 shooting. He played 40 minutes, and put the Poppies on his back. While I was a little apprehensive of his USG, I still think my rank of 23 ended up being ahead of the curve (I would confirm this, but FantasyPros is being a little ish and not making it easy to find draft day expert consensus!). Alas, I was unable to get the Goose in any leagues, and I’m suffering some major poultry withdrawal. Thankfully Thanksgiving is right around the corner! He’s taken 15+ shots the past 7 games, attempting 2 more treys a game than last year, and the TO rate has gone from 1.7 his rookie year to 1.3. His ridiculous 7’3 size makes him too tough for stretch-4s to cover him, and his ridiculous speed and ball-handling makes him too tough for centers. He’s becoming a true matchup nightmare with the added iso moves, and is – I’m going there – a no question first-rounder next year. Slim having him on his REL team has me depressingly reaching for the Grey Goose! Here’s what else went down in fantasy hoops action last night:

All eyes were on the NBA on Tuesday night. Just messing. I’m sure most people were following along to see who would come out on top in the Presidential race. In the end, Donald Trump won.

Whatever your political affiliations, it’ll be different with the Donald in office. Barack Obama is a huge sports fan and loves basketball. It’ll probably be a while until we see another President filling out a bracket during March Madness, playing a game of H-O-R-S-E with Clark Kellogg, or clowning the Warriors when they were in town to celebrate their championship.

If nothing else, let’s be happy it’s over. It’s been a long and drawn out process. Now we can focus on things that really matter…like recapping Tuesday night’s games:

The fantasy basketball world is like, “bring out your dead!” “Free up those IL spots!” “Hope you have some scrubs to drop with everyone getting healthy again!”

With a shot of rum and locker room pyrotechnics, Jobu has unleashed his voodoo magic and Jesus Christ can now hit a curveball! Or I guess in this metaphor, hit a jump shot. Well, except if you’re Stephen Curry and you’re behind the 3 point line… Break up the Lakers!

It was a Sunday resurrection around the association, highlighted (well, for me) by Chandler Parsons getting back on the court yesterday afternoon. Way to take the spotlight off my Panthers, NBA scheduling! But good thing I focused on the Panthers, as Parsons was horrific, pulling a Jamal Murray and shooting 0-8 from the field. “Is that goal regulation size, or what?!” At least chipped in 3 boards and got a block, but didn’t finish the game with the starters in a close one, playing ~5 minute sets and only 22 minutes. After that rough anticipation of waiting, seeing such a dud out of the gate makes CP25 an ultimate buy low. I actually left him in my IL in a few RCLs, predicting a rough one outta the gate. Frustrated owners might think the knee is to blame, but he’s been practicing in full since before the season, so I think it’s just a little gametime rust. Just ask Jon Snow, when you get resurrected from the dead, you’re not 100% right out of the gate! Here’s what else went down over the weekend in fantasy basketball action:

Welcome back to RazzWired! Week 1 is finally in the books, so it’s time to look at who you can grab off the wire!

Before we begin, lets get some housekeeping out of the way. Throughout the season, this column will only be looking at players owned in less than 50% of leagues. These recommendations are also tailored to the 9-cat RCL format. That being said, let’s dive in!

First up, we have a repeat offender, from last year’s RazzWired series. The one, the only, Matty B!

Draft season is now truly upon us with all sites having listed their official rankings for the fanatics, but how accurate those rankings are will well and truly depend on the structure of your league. One of the many attractions to the fantasy sport of basketball is the many different strategies that can play out, and of course the variety of settings and types of leagues that can be afforded to those that take the time to be commissioner of one of our favorite past times.

One of the big minefields that I spend scrupulous hours changing my ranks is trying to balance the variety of categories. The biggest minefield for me is turnovers.